


Only You

by erendriel



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Batjokes, Character Death, Love, M/M, One Shot, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 08:19:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14445186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erendriel/pseuds/erendriel
Summary: The Joker turns up at Bruce Wayne's house uninvited.  With a knife...





	Only You

**Author's Note:**

> Only you can make this world seem right  
> Only you can make the darkness bright  
> Only you and you alone

The last thing Bruce Wayne expected to see upon coming home was his arch nemesis, sitting on his couch with rain-drenched hair, in his clothes, legs pulled up to his chest with blood eagerly pressing through the fabric of the white shirt. He was staring blankly ahead of him, but despite the air of vulnerability that hung around the clown prince, the knife in his hand told differently. Despite how much it was shaking. 

Bruce’s eyes instinctively scanned around the room, looking for anything he could use as a weapon if he had to. A single chandelier caught his eye, and he mentally noted it’s location before stepping further into the room, closing the door behind him.

“It’s raining…” Joker stated, his voice hoarse as if he had just been screaming or crying, or both... his expression remained unphased and he was still staring ahead of him.

“What are you doing here?” Bruce asked in response, not willing to play yet another one of the clown’s sick games tonight. He’d just gotten home from patrol as Batman after all. If anything was unexpected, it was this. And why here, why  _ Bruce Wayne _ ?

“You just never play along, do you bats?” Joker asked, clearly trying to put some life in his voice, but failing at that, and god that wrenched his stomach more than the fact that he’d just called Bruce ‘bats’ in his home, out of his suit.

“Where’s Alfred?” Bruce asked instinctively, keeping his distance from the couch, but standing close enough to look at Joker’s face. It was just as he expected, beaten up with bloodshot eyes. But not by his doing.

“How should I know? He’s your butler…” Joker retorted with a hint of anger in his voice. As if he was seriously angry that Bruce assumed he would hurt his butler after everything he’s already done in the past. But Bruce knew, if he did do anything he would flaunt it around. He wouldn’t brush it off, he would make a show of it. So he took to another question.

“Who did that to you?”

Finally, Joker looked up and met Bruce’s gaze. And god knew Bruce wished he hadn’t. His eyes, his stare, it was all so empty. So drained. Even the colour seemed weaker than its usual piercing green. The spark was gone, but Bruce could still see his pupils dilating the moment they locked gaze. Even ever so lightly.

“You ask a lot of wrong questions for a man who’s just had his secret identity figured out.” Joker said with obvious mock-disgust in his tone. And he turned his head back to its previous position, staring ahead of him.

_ Where is the life? _

“I did it.” Joker then added. “I asked someone to do it for me.”

_ What?  _

“Why?” Bruce asked with a frown, crossing his arms.

“To feel something” Joker said, looking at Bruce once more, apparently noting the confusion in his eyes as he quite instantly added “it didn’t work…” 

“What are you doing here, Joker? How did you find out?” Bruce asked in the single moment his rationality returned before he watched it fade again like the life in Joker’s eyes.

“Finally asking the right questions.” Joker grumbled and pushed himself up from the couch. Pulling a pained face in the process. He moved as if every bone in his body was broken. And for all Bruce knew that might’ve been true.

Bruce took a step back, because despite the fact that he wasn’t thinking straight, the knife in Joker’s hand was still a burning presence. 

“I’ve known who you were behind that mask for years.” Joker said as if it were something obvious. He looked like he was going to add a smart-remark. Make fun of Bruce somehow, but he didn’t.

_ God why not? _

“I just didn’t care. As long as the bat played my game.”

That sounded true. Eerily true. The fact that Joker could have struck at any given time, could have trashed his home, hurt his friends, hurt Alfred…

“So why now, what’s changed?” Bruce asked, trying hard to sound intimidating. But he felt more discombobulated than ever before. The Joker going around killing people with a smile was one thing, but not having that smile at all. Being so drained and looking so broken. It was as if he were a completely different person. And if Bruce hadn’t analysed every single quirk and movement Joker had ever made during their ‘games’ he would question if this was not just some imposter. But it was really him. Unfortunately it was.

Then Joker began pacing, throwing Bruce onto a whole different path of alertness as he inched closer to the chandelier.

“You ever have a really bad day? You question everything and everyone around you. You look closely at all them and just realize that… that....” Joker started and stopped in his tracks, face scrunching up into something that could only be described as pure hatred “that god you hate everyone. Everyone is the same, everything is the same. You endlessly repeat routines, loops, you get stuck in life’s meat grinder and you just want to…” 

_ Silence. _

“Want to what, Joker?” Bruce asked, to which Joker turned toward him with a stare that caused every single hair on his body to stand upright and the pace of his heartbeat pick up with a rush that the adrenaline of a fight could never wake up in him.

“...pull the plug.” 

Joker finally said, causing Bruce’s eyes to widen.

“You mean-”

“Gone, dead, yada, no more. No more breathing, no more games, no more fighting. Over! All of it!” Joker cut him off, swinging his hands around theatrically, consuming the last bit of energy he seemed to have. As his shoulders immediately slumped back down again.

“You want to die, now? After everything? You can’t be serious?” Bruce said shaking his head with disbelief. “Why? Why now? Why come to me? What’s the meaning of all this, Joker?”

Then Joker’s shoulders began shaking as his head hung down. It almost looked like he was going to cry, but then after a single intake of breath, maniacal laughter filled the parlor. More unhinged than it had ever been, his cackling was irregular, breathless, and it didn’t stop there, the laughter died down, flowing into something much more frightening. Sobs. 

“Joker?” 

The sobs became more and more mute, as Joker’s shoulders remained slumped and he was staring down at his feet.

“It’s you, Bruce. It’s always been you.” He said, shaking his head. “You, just you... Only you...“ 

And before Bruce could say anything else, could make any moves, could even breathe. Joker looked up at Bruce with a smile. A genuine, affectionate smile which made him look so sane for just a split second… the split second before he plunged the knife into his own stomach, pulling it out, colouring the once white shirt entirely red. And he plunged the knife in again, and by the third time Bruce’s mind had gone into a complete trance. 

_ This can’t be happening. _

He stumbled backwards, finding his balance by leaning on the chandelier stand, causing it to bump off and roll onto the floor. He felt like he was about to faint, but he mentally hit himself and reminded his legs how to walk.

Joker had made a last plunge, his hands were covered in blood entirely, he dropped the knife to the floor as he fell to his knees. And just before he could hit the floor, Bruce had sprinted toward him and dropped to his knees, catching Joker in his fall. 

“No, no, no! Joker!” He exclaimed, and at some point he must have started crying, because tears were falling down onto the Joker’s face. 

Tears were streaming down the pale man’s face as well as he stared up at Bruce.

And Bruce found himself sobbing, ugly, raw. No cover-ups. Just sobbing.

“How could you? I love you…” Bruce said through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw.

“Now that-” he started, breathing in heavily. Bruce could  _ hear  _ the struggle in his breath, the pain. “ _ is _ funny…” he continued. “I love- only you.” Joker said with a smile, a smile that was as wide as a dying man’s smile could get. And Bruce could feel, could hear his heart break right then and there. He reached out for the dying man’s bloody hand and clutched onto it like a lifeboat.

Then Joker’s eyes rolled back, the tension disappeared from his body and he went completely limp. His last breath came out shakily and it hit Bruce with a pain he’d never felt before. With tears, with choked sobs and with Alfred bursting through the doors, running toward Bruce that he was gone. It was all over. The Joker was dead.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You're my dream come true  
> My one and only you  
> You're my dream come true  
> My one and only you


End file.
